2010-08-17: Up On the Rooftop, Drip, Drip, Drip
Summary: Peej stumbles on a strange girl at a crime scene. Semi-polite chit-chat over a bleeding body. Location: A rooftop in NYC, with a pigeon coop Participants: Power Girl and Memory Rating: PG-13 for the dead body. On a dark night in New York City, most wouldn't notice the dead body on the rooftop, laying face down in a pool of sticky, drying blood. Nor would they notice the female figure with platinum blonde curls (dressed in a classy white business suit, fedora, heels, and domino mask) kneeling over said figure. Then again, most don't have Kryptonian super-senses or the ability to fly, either. White must be in this season, as the Kryptonian flying over head is also decked out in white (and blue, and red), though her outfit covers... significantly less of her than the young woman in the suit. Power Girl is making her rounds of the city before calling it a night when she spots the body, and the girl standing over it. She descends, hovering a few inches over the rooftop. It's not her usual type of job- she generally likes to be there /before/ the murder, and stop it, but she figures she can at least keep the girl, who could either be the murderer, or a witness at the scene until the police arrive. "Stay right where you are," she tells her. She sees no blood on the the woman's white suit, so for the moment, she's not going to treat her like a suspect. "Did you see what happened?" "Oh, wow." The teen in the white suit glances up at the newly arrived Kryptonian. "Power Woman. This? Big honor." She holds out her hands about three feet apart. "This big. At least." She rises, slowly. "No. I didn't see it. Arrived a minute ago." She points to the man. "He was coming up to the roof..." She points to the door that leads back down into the building, "... to feed the pigeons." She points to the coop and then to a bottle of bird food that's fallen, unopened, to the ground, "Someone stabbed him. Based on the entry angle and the wound I'm guessing they approached from behind, wrapped one arm around the chest, then plunged a blade, a survival knife most likely, into his stomach." She pauses, then adds. "I'm Memory. I'm a big fan of your's." Power Girl doesn't bother correcting her on the name. It's better than some of the misnomers she's been given, usually by leering wannabe supervillains who think they're clever. "That's... quick work for only a minute. The police will probably want to talk to you, since you were first on the scene," she tells her. "You haven't touched the body, or moved it at all, have you?" This sort of thing is covered in superhero training 101. Also, CSI reruns. She has her downtime too! "I couldn't tell the wound shape with it being on the roof." Memory points out. She holds up her hands. "Gloves." Indeed, there are white gloves. "I put the body back exactly how I found it, to the centimeter." She rises to her feet and walks over to Power Girl. "Wow. I mean... wow. I have a poster of you in my room. Only, I photoshopped it to give you a P symbol. You know, here..." She motions to her own chest, "You totally deserve your own sigil." Power Girl opens her mouth to say something, then stops. She looks a little stunned. "I... thank you, I think," she decides to go with that. "Hold on. I'm going to alert the police." Evidently she has some sort of in-ear communicator. A quick conversation that looks suspiciously as if she's talking to herself later, and she looks back to Memory. "The police should be here... eventually." She looks very intently at the body for a few moments. Microscopic vision is pretty handy at moments like this. She can at least tell the crime scene people where to look. "You're using your microscopic vision, right? Or x-ray. Or both? Can you use both at the same time?" Memory asks, curiously. Microscopic vision reveals tracks of dirt that lead to the rooftop's edge but not to the next rooftop over. There's no fire escape, so someone either flew off or leaped to the ground below. "I was going to call the police when I finished my investigation. This is practice for me." "I... probably could, but I'm not sure trying to process the information from both at once wouldn't give me a headache. It's usually easier to use one at at a time," answers Power Girl. "Practice? A man is dead, I'm not sure how much he'd appreciate being thought of as a training excersize," she can't help but snap a bit. She swears she hears some of her cousin in her voice there, and winces a little. "The only way to practice detective work is to... well... do detective work. Before the police remove all the evidence." Memory says, unapologetically. "I plan on finding his killer and making sure he faces his day in court. I promise." She smiles, tilting her head, "Can I ask you a question? Why do you insist on using a name that demeans your status as a capable adult?" "Point," she allows, and nods at the girl's answer, though only once. The question catches her by surprise, and her eyebrows raise a little. "I guess... well. I was younger when I took the name, and I guess I'm just used to it," she says after a moment's thought. "And Power Girl can be shortened to Peej. Peew doesn't sound as good." Memory barks out a laugh, then slaps her hand over her mouth. "Oh!" She slowly lowers her hand. "I'm sorry. That was funny! Peew. I understand... I just... well... I doubt if Superman was once Superboy he'd still go by the name. It isn't fair that we get diminished because so many men easily see women as just as silly or stupid as little girls. It isn't a good message to young women looking for rolemodels." "Oh believe me, I've got more faults to justify a little girl not picking me as her role model that would come up way before the name would," Peej says with a bit of a smirk. "There's a reason I've been banned from ever appearing on Fox News again." You put ONE TV personality in a headlock, and suddenly you're blacklisted by the whole network! Breaking his stupid chalkboard over his head might have taken it a step too far, admittedly... "You don't get to pick who chooses you as a role model." Memory points out, "The girls who pick you do. The girls who see you fight evil... refuse to take crap from anyone... stand up for yourself, demanding to be counted as a person of beauty, power, and intelligence? They choose YOU. Not the other way around. Do you know why you're on my wall and not, say, Wonder Woman? Because I can be you. Okay, not the powers and I could fit my whole head in one cup of your bra but your attitude? Your insistance that the world treat you as someone instead of Superman's big boobed, blonde cousin? I want to be JUST like that. In charge of myself and in charge of my life." Power Girl resists the urge to hug the girl. Someone gets it! She actually smiles at that. "And most people just call me the bitchy Supergirl. Thanks, I appreciate it. Although you'd be surprised how little crap Wonder Woman will really take from people," she says, still half-smiling. "She's just better at making anyone who talks about her look like an idiot by somehow politely and diplomatically telling them off, where as I... well. I'm me. She has a lot fewer pending lawsuits," she's... mostly kidding about that last part. Kind of. "Not everyone has diplomacy as a super-power. And believe me, I've memorized seventeen books on the art of diplomacy. And I still suck at it." Memory sighs. "Anyway. Yeah. You're sort of... anyway." She blushes a bit. "Oh! If I lift up the body, can you tell me if there's any residue left in the wound? It might tell me what sort of knife did it. I don't have anything that can see on the microscopic level." "Let me try using the X-Ray and microscopic visions at once, instead of risking disturbing anything," Peej suggests. "Although if my head explodes, we'll know it was a bad idea," she says, a bit wryly. "Besides, it'd be a shame to get stains on your suit. White's a good color on you." And with that, she makes with the TV-quality zoom-and-enhancing in her brain, looking /through/ the body to the wound. It takes a moment to sort things out visually... but hey, it works! "I wish I could offer you advice but I concentrate on two things at a time in a different way that most people." Memory notes. "I'm going to shut up now, though, because you're concentrating." Indeed, there are microscopic fragments... of a black, glass-like substance. "Hm. Something like glass. A piece of broken window, maybe? Though it's dark, so maybe... something tinted. Or a stone like hematite," she tells her, after staring at the body for a few seconds. "Does any of that mean anything to you?" "Not without analysis." Memory admits. "Maybe obsidian? It is glass-like, dark, and was made into blades by various groups in Central America. This doesn't look like a ritual sacrifice but there are a number of Aztec themed super-villains out there and a few latino gangs that do the whole Aztec motiff..." "Any reason any of them would want to kill someone who keeps pigeons?" she says with a nod too the coops. She makes a bit of a sad face, looking from the body to the birds. "Poor guy just wanted to feed his pets." Although the point of raising pigeons in New York City completely evades her. "Good question." Memory says, walking over to the coop. "Did the pigeons have anything to do with it? Or was his feeding them just an opportunity." She leans in close, "Did you know pigeons are really a form of dove? Most people don't. I think they're beautiful... and these have been used to carry messages. There's scar tissue around the legs of several from where the string was tied a bit too tightly." "Carrier pigeons? Guy obviously didn't have a FaceSpace account," Peej comments, taking a closer look at the birds. "Sounds like he might have been involved in something with a bit more need for security. Or he was just a technophobe. Which after Googling myself a couple times, I can kind of understand." Camera phones are the bane of her crimefighting existence. Everything shows up on YouTube. "You have one of the largest chests in the public eye and you show it off... are you really surprised by what you find when you Google yourself?" Memory asks as one of her minds works through the clues, connecting and constructing scenarios. "Does he have any tattoos under his clothes?" "Oh, that doesn't surprise me. Everything on the 'net about these, I've heard twice in person. What does is the number of people who call me fat," she says. "Guess there's only so much people are willing to say to my face." She scales back the X-Ray vision in order to look at his skin. "Ugh. I feel a little less bad about his being dead now. Neo-Nazi tattoos, looks like they were done in prison. Or a really awful tattoo parlor." She makes a face. "Neo-nazi prison tattoos... message carrying pigeons and an obsidian blade..." Memory says, though her mind works faster than her mind, piecing together connections and running through the criminal database she memorized. "John Quincy Adams. His real name, believe it or not. He went in for armed robbery, did five years, and was released two years ago." She considers the man. "Carrier pigeons would be a clever way to avoid electronic easedropping by the police, feds, or rival gangs, wouldn't they?" Power Girl nods. "Ironically, the Allies used them in World War II," she says. "Probably the Germans too, admittedly." She frowns, and shakes her head. "At least this gives you somewhere to start, but... be careful, if you do look in to this," she warns. "It might mean running in to some of his buddies." "I'm trained in martial arts and I have weapons..." Memory admits, "But I wouldn't mind bullet-proof help if you were willing. And if I could get ahold of you again. I guess I can go around calling out your name but that might get annoying." "Actually, that's... probably the best way to go about it. I'm not sure I'd want to know what a Power Girl Symbol would look like in the sky," says Peej, after a few moments' thought. "But I might be able to pass on your name to someone who's really good to call on in a crisis," she offers. "Memory." The platinum blonde teen says. "My grandmother was Miss Memory, back in the fourties. Most people haven't heard of her. Small time in the mystery man business but she did her part." "I'll have to look her up," says Peej, just as the first of the police officers arrive, not quite at the rooftop yet. "Between you and me, I wouldn't admit to the cops you touched the body. The can get a little touchy about tampering with a scene," she advises. "I'll tell them you're with me," she volunteers. "It might mean you get out of here faster." "Which I appreciate." Memory smiles. "It has been so wicked to meet you and... you know... chat... and stuff." She tucks a platinum curl behind an ear. "Thank you." "It's always night to meet a fan," there's an unspoken 'that isn't a horny teenage boy.' She'd offer the girl an autograph, but it's not like she has anywhere to keep paper or pens. Or at least, anywhere that wouldn't be horribly tacky to store things. "Do you want a lift to the ground after the chat with the cops? I should probably talk to them a bit too." "Yes, please. I left my motorcycle down there." Memory responds. There's a pretty rad white Suzuki parked a few blocks away. No plates, of course. "And I'd love to fly. I've never done that before. That I can remember." Just as Peej predicted, the police don't want to hold either of them for too long. Once Peej implies Memory's an 'associate' (meaning: fellow superhero), they seem to take the girl a little more seriously, even. She mostly ignores the uniformed rookie staring at her chest, save for one moment when she puts her hand under his chin to point his face upwards at hers. After it's all said and done, she scoops up Memory (cradling her, because no one likes to be carried by their armpits, it's uncomfortable), and sets down next to the bike. "Nice ride," she notes, appreciatively. "Sweet sixteen from grandma." Memory responds with pride, stroking her bike as if it were a kitten. "Well, that and my brain. Long story. Anyway. Umm... wow. It was wicked to meet you. It really was." A very rare event occurs right then. Peej smiles, genuinely. "I'm flattered." She leaves the brain comment alone. It's probably something she doesn't want to think too hard about. "Tell your grandmother the young woman taking up her mantle is doing a good job." A complex, fifty digit code is entered to start the motorcycle purring. Memory smiles and offers a jaunty salute. "I'll tell her. Thanks again... Peew." She winks and then the bike roars, shooting out into traffic. The Dame Detective rides again! (No, not Batwoman...) Category:Logs